Jim Connolly Marketing

Why you’re attracting fewer clients and how to fix things

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business potential, marketing, decisions

I often hear from business owners, who have a very similar problem. In fact, most people reading this will have the problem, to a lesser or greater extent. So, I thought I’d share it with you, along with some ideas on how to stop it from hurting your business.

Okay. So, here’s the challenge.

Business owners look back over the past year or two and notice they’re slowly getting fewer new clients or making fewer sales. Interestingly, this happens, even though they’re working hard and providing the same exceptional service.

Typically, business owners will approach this challenge by changing their marketing; only to find that it doesn’t help much. And this is because, in many, perhaps most cases, the problem isn’t directly related to their marketing.

To find a way forward, we need to start by looking at what’s happening in the marketplace.

The evolution of your marketplace

Your marketplace is in a rapid state of evolution.

  • Some of your familiar competitors leave the marketplace.
  • New, agile competitors arrive, with many offering better deals, more flexible options or a wider range of services.
  • Some existing competitors decide to up their game, developing interesting new services or products.
  • And the speed with which things change has never been faster.

As a direct result, the bar keeps rising.

What was an exceptional service or product line a year ago, isn’t exceptional today. And what used to be exceptional value is now the absolute minimum expected.

Presented with this evolving reality, the expectations of your clients (and future clients) rises accordingly.

This is critically important.

Why?

Because any business owner, who works hard month after month doing the same exceptional things, the same exceptional way, ceases to be exceptional. By doing more of the same, you’re standing still, while the marketplace evolves. This places you in an extremely risky (and unsustainable) situation.

There’s a proven way forward, which has worked for countless clients of mine. Here’s a very quick overview.

Moving forward: It’s not about change!

Change for its own sake is pointless. The change needs to be meaningful. Otherwise, things become different, not better.

Instead, focus on improvement. Research your competitor’s; prices, services, product lines, guarantees, promises, opening hours, and payment terms, etc. That’s your baseline (currently) for standing still. To make progress, you’ll need to improve on what they’re doing.

However, meaningful results requires you to go beyond iterative improvements on what everyone else is doing. Meaningful results come from identifying what your prospective client’s want and need, which isn’t currently being provided.

This isn’t easy and it can take time. However, the rewards for your effort and time can be HUGE.

Here’s a useful place to start

Look at your business through the eyes of your ideal prospective client. Next, consider the kind of service and results they want. Then, using their wants and needs as your guide, seek out ways of achieving their desired outcomes, which are OUTSIDE the current scope of your services.

Resist the temptation to just tweak what you already do, or copy what one or more of your competitors are doing. You need to be meaningfully different if you want to make meaningful improvements and see meaningful results.

This is a massive subject and I’ve just scratched the surface here. I hope you find it a useful starting point.

I also strongly recommend you read my previous piece on building an agile business. It’s got lots more ideas and tips, which fit nicely with what I’ve shared with you today.

Have a great day!

Marketing tip: Press pause!

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I want you to think about the following for a moment:

  • The last tweet you sent.
  • The last newsletter you published.
  • The last Linkedin post you shared.
  • The last Facebook update you posted.

Each of those actions could easily be a prospective customer’s first exposure to you (and your business). If so, it will help form their first impression of you.

Here’s the thing. First impressions count.

  • First impressions count, even if you are having a bad day.
  • First impressions count, even if they are inaccurate.
  • And first impressions count, because if you screw it up, you often won’t get a second chance!

So, what’s the solution?

Well, here’s something that can certainly help you.

Drum roll please…

Pause…

It pays to pause for a few moments before you publish ANYTHING. That’s because most of what you publish is easy to find via search engines or the social networks you use. And we know that the vast majority of people now check providers out, before deciding to hire them or buy from them.

Think about the wider, longer-term implications of what you are saying. Never underestimate the impact of an angry tweet, a needy Linkedin post or a spammy Facebook update, etc.

Once it’s published, it’s out there. It’s in play. It’s carrying your name. And it’s carving your reputation.

Tip: Read this » How To Build a World Class Reputation.

Be where their attention is!

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marketing

The next time you’re on your way to or from work, try this.

I want you to take a look at the people around you; car passengers, bus passengers, train passengers or pedestrians. Notice what they are paying attention to?

No, they’re not looking at billboards.

They’re looking at a phone or a tablet.

So, be where their attention is

There’s a huge opportunity for you here. That is, so long as you’re willing to publish useful information, which your prospective customers will want to consume, to combat the boredom of a dull journey. Newsletters, podcasts, videos and blog posts are perfect for this.

However, there are a couple of things to consider, before you invest your time and effort getting onto their mobile device.

Firstly, make sure you publish something that’s useful to them. If you do, they’ll share it. Your audience will grow. And your name and reputation will spread.

Secondly, make sure that whatever you publish is mobile friendly. Many small business blogs and newsletters are challenging to read on mobile devices, and that’s just not good enough. If you want to engage readers, give them a great reader experience. If you want to engage viewers or listeners, make the audio-visual experience crisp and clear.

The payback?

When you’ve earned the attention and trust of your audience, by turning up regularly with useful, interesting information, and you have a business announcement for them (a new product, offer, service, event, book etc.), they will listen. And because they know your work and trust you, the response rate can be off the charts.

The opportunity is here and it’s huge. Plus, the financial cost of reaching all those prospective customers is tiny.

The question is, what are you going to do with all this potential?

And your answer will depend on this: Knowing and doing.

How to know if you have a winning idea

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marketing decisions

If you’re in the process of making an important business decision, today’s post is just for you. At the very least, it will help you increase your chances of a successful outcome.

Okay. Let’s go!

I’d like to start by sharing something with you. It’s about certain questions, which people ask me all the time.

Here’s just a small sample.

  • If I provide (whatever) as a new service, will it be successful?
  • Will I be more successful, if I become a niche provider, rather than a generalist?
  • Is (whatever) a good name for my new business, product or service?

If you take a closer look at those questions, you’ll notice they have something in common. They’re all decisions. And by asking me the question, the questioner is asking me to decide.

Great ideas are not anointed

Here’s the problem with that approach: Great ideas are not anointed. There are many factors, which determine whether a business idea will fly or flop. Ironically, one of them is the ability of the business owner to make business decisions.

For example, when the first tablet computers were made (years before the iPad), they flopped. They flopped, not because tablet devices were a bad idea. Apple’s success proved that beyond all doubt. They flopped because of the poor decisions that were made about the design, development, marketing, pricing and quality of the first tablet devices.

Will that idea of yours succeed?

If the research stacks up.

If the numbers work.

If you’re committed to making timely decisions based on good data.

If it’s marketed professionally… you’ll possibly knock it out of the park.

But you’ll only know for certain, if you try. Yes, there’s a risk attached to trying. In fact, there’s a risk attached to every decision.

Think about it, even the decision to do nothing, is itself, a MAJOR decision. And it’s a major decision, that comes with a huge risk attached.

Really?

Yes! Every time we choose to do nothing, we close the door on a potential opportunity. That’s a risky strategy, unless we know for certain that our idea can’t succeed. And it’s hard to know for certain, if we refuse to, at the very least, give our idea a try.

10 Reasons to be massively optimistic about your business

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marketing optimism

  1. You’re never more than one idea away from a life-changing, breakthrough result.
  2. And you’re never more than one email or phone call away from your biggest order or best ever client enquiry. I was reminded of this last month, when a client informed me that he’d just landed his first ever million dollar contract. Just 10 months earlier, he was close to quitting!
  3. You can increase your fees (or prices) by 200%, as long as you increase your value to the marketplace by 200%, first. Of course, the same is true of a 300% fee increase, etc.
  4. Whatever problem you’re facing right now, has already been overcome by countless other business owners. This means the answer you need is already out there. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking.
  5. Business doesn’t need to be boring. Remember, you’re in control. You can choose to do work that truly inspires you.
  6. And because you’re in control, you don’t have to work for low quality clients, either. As I said last week, you can’t build a great business with bad clients.
  7. Thanks to social networks, you can listen to your marketplace and find out exactly what they want. This means you can develop a product or service, knowing in advance that the demand will be high. No more guessing!
  8. You’re living in the golden age of business. This is the era, which past generations dreamed of. For example, YouTube gives you a free, global TV channel. WordPress gives you a free, global publishing platform and Gmail gives you free, global message distribution.
  9. Fact: When you improve your strategy, you improve your results. And you can choose to improve your strategy any time you want to.
  10. Finally, you don’t need to hunker down and “hope” things will improve. You can choose get moving on anything listed above, right now, and start enjoying the results.

Is toxic marketing losing you a fortune? Probably. Here’s why!

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Marketing blogs, thrive

Did you know, healthy marketing and healthy eating share something in common?

Well, they do. It’s this:

  • There’s more than one method for healthy eating. The challenge comes, when you combine ideas from a number of conflicting methods. This creates a toxic mix, which can make you sick.
  • There’s also more than one way to successfully market a business. And just like the previous example, you can create a devastatingly toxic mix, by combining ideas from conflicting marketing methods.

Here’s why this matters

Almost every small business owner is needlessly losing a fortune and missing great opportunities, thanks to a toxic marketing mix.

There are dozens of extremely common examples. Here are just a few to help illustrate what I mean.

  • The consultants who promise a high value service, yet work for average or below average fees. They seem unaware, how people are warned from childhood that quality doesn’t come cheap. That if something looks too good to be true, it is too good to be true. This kind of mixed marketing warns your marketplace not to believe you.
  • The business owner who wants to SEO their content for maximum search traffic, and also wants to maximise that same content, to inspire people to hire them or buy from them. It doesn’t work. Write for search engine algorithms or write to utterly compel people to make a purchasing decision. Choose: Machines or people? Do both and you’ll fail on both counts. 
  • The service providers who claim to be in high demand, yet who beg strangers to book a free consultation with them, via their website. Unaware how needy and desperate they look, they wonder why people won’t talk to them for free.

Sadly, not every toxic marketing mix is obvious to the untrained eye. That’s why they’re so common.

But as we enter such an uncertain time for the global economy, the savvy business owner must (at least try) and spot them.